info on the UW IECF reserach

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Richard Hull
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info on the UW IECF reserach

Post by Richard Hull »

It turns out the recent sale of all of the old IECF lab gear and fusion systems that adorned the old UW engineering physics building is due to the fact that no one left in that department is interested in pursuing the IECF fusion investigation and research any longer. As such, all the gear is up for sale. It is indeed sad. Apparently, Gerald Kulcinski retired from UW in 2014 and formed a company related to a nuclear effort and hopes to continue some work in IECF.

It is good to know that many students over many years at UW had the opportunity to get their hands dirty actually doing fusion, making and assembling parts via the "hands-on imperative".

We all know 59K is cheap for all that gear. At least, it will probably go to someone who knows the gear inside and out.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: info on the UW IECF reserach

Post by Dennis P Brown »

The University of Wisconsin fusion program is folding? Wow. The closing of the MIT plasma physics (and its fusion related efforts) a few years back by the DOE was really a bad turn of events. This really adds to that!

At least Princeton still has its tokamak research going (producing future PhD's and techs in the field) - though, no thanks to its lead scientist and his best efforts to shoot himself in the foot and destroy his own program*!

I guess the independents are now the only real remaining efforts in this country - some are truly science based (MIT spin off group) and some totally out in left field. Who of these privately funded efforts lasts even two to three years is up in the air but I don't think net power fusion (whether on the cheap or billion dollars level) will work using most approaches (that are well understood) or the far less likely wild ideas. Time will tell.

* Physicist that think they know more then engineers
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Re: info on the UW IECF reserach

Post by Andrew Seltzman »

I wouldn't necessarily say that shutting down Alcator C-MOD at MIT was a bad thing, it had lived out it's scientific usefulness and it was time to make way for new experiments such as SPARC. I believe that, in part, that keeping old experiments up and running for 3-4 decades instead of building new ones is why fusion power research modes so slowly (Alcator C was built in 1978 and modified to C-MOD in 1996). Of course it's always a hard sell to dismantle a working machine after so much has been invested in it's construction...
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Richard Bonomo
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Re: info on the UW IECF reserach

Post by Richard Bonomo »

Hello!

I heard that my name and lab appeared on Fusor.net, so I thought I would come to chime in and correct and update impressions!

My name is, as noted, Richard Bonomo. I was the staff engineer / lab manager / etc. for the University of Wisconsin Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion Laboratory under the umbrella of the UW Fusion Technology Institute from February, 2008, until the IEC Group shut down, officially, in December of 2020, as our funding has run out. My "retirement" is temporary, premature, and not voluntary. It was simply a consequence of the funding situation.

I am currently the primary consulting laboratory manager for Clandestine Materials Detection, Inc., which company was recently started to continue the work of the UW FTI/IEC Group in the area of explosives detection using fusion technology.

Rich


EDIT: Post duplicated here from the introduction area since it is relevant to this thread. Frank Sanns
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Richard Hull
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Re: info on the UW IECF reserach

Post by Richard Hull »

One would love to know the exact figure of funding needed to keep the IECF effort going at UW. This effort was educational in nature at a level that dealt with real hands-on teaching. This nation pours money down a rat-hole daily on many worthless and fruitless endeavors. Sure, they speak of education being a first priority yet many of our kids are little more than dunces, ground up into some sort of less that citizen-like rubes.

We know the money is there, but where does it go, specifically? How far do such riches bestowed on education trickle down within the system? Even on PBS, my old NOVA has become almost indistinguishable from NATURE that precedes it. We are seeing such "hard science" shows disappear into a bio-friendly lesson of how terrible we are treating the planet. Science, for me, is about hard discovery, technology and advanced ideas at work, therein, and not about shaming science and its adherents for supposedly raping the earth.

Lets pour money into education, sure, but let's see value for our money in STEM successes and not just a resultant "lesser than we were" product come out of the educational system. Remember, these are the people who will vote at far younger ages than we. How well have we armed them to work and contribute in the world? I like to think that in hard science and engineering at the better colleges we do, indeed, turn out the best of our best.

This IECF program is one of the few where students at this level of education could experience real work in nuclear science...Hands-on work. This is what our effort here is all about.

We see people arrive here at fusor.net with all sorts of expectations, but they quickly learn, they must "self-direct" into complex study, learning and a hands-on effort that dips them into any number of technologies and sciences. The winners leave with experiences and knowledge that money can't buy! They have enriched themselves by having a will and verve to do and succeed.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: info on the UW IECF reserach

Post by Frank Sanns »

The IECF at UW was a great learning tool for many. Their collaboration with national labs (LANL) and the Japanese IECF effort was an important part of their work.

Unfortunately, collaboration with the private sector, at least in my experience, was terrible. It seems that Gerald Kulcinski axed at least one highly funded and novel approach to high power plasma fusion. He would not even get to the point of working under and NDA to explore both the financial and technical details of the proposal. This surprised me quite a bit as most companies will give at least an initial evaluation of things and not just snub their nose at a potential cash cow or new approaches. I guess that was then and he was rolling in the short term funding. This is now and they are out on their own and my guess is that it is scratch and dig now or in the near future. Time will tell.

As previously stated, it was a good program for teaching. That aspect of it appears to now be gone. That is a great loss.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Re: info on the UW IECF reserach

Post by Richard Bonomo »

Your remarks are on target: The IEC fusion groups was an excellent training ground for many!

It is not so much a matter of $$, though that would help. It's a matter of having faculty who are interested, and a Dean of Engineering who is enthusiastically supportive. Those elements are missing.

Jerry Kulcinski did not really "retire" in 2014. He took Emeritus status so he could work for free, and not burden the grants with his salary. He continue to work more than full time, and still is, though not at the University.

Wish us luck as we try to continue the work under the name of Clandestine Materials Detection, Inc.!

Rich
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Richard Hull
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Re: info on the UW IECF reserach

Post by Richard Hull »

Wishing you all the best in the future, goes without saying! Many alums will remember their time in the IECF U of W fusion lab. Like our 23 year old fusor.net, the U of W effort is a true legacy that generated a lot of great papers and results. We followed your group's work from our earliest days.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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